Member Info for Pask

Thank you Celery.

Forgive my ignorance, and fair play. I suppouse because there is little information on it, the mind tends to fill in the blanks. I suppouse we won't know till we know. There are however, intresting collaboration taking place with remediate with other universitys.

Subtle 'two pints of lager, and a packet of crisps' shout out. Ay, I like it.

I still want more information on our current partner focusing on algae storage of CO2. Even if can reduce some of the carbon emitined by Uskmouth, it would be better than nothing (say, 15-35% at first). There is little on their website, so it smells like a PR move but I think we should seriously consider algae sludge solutions and get in a more established played (unless our guys can demonstrate they are actually working on something that could potentially be tanigable).

Dammit, I was just going to post the same thing.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/world-australia-57675513

I think we need more information on remediate first, before we can make a descision as to its effectiveness. I can't find anything about them out there other than their webpage.

I do have the gut feeling that there might be something to soften the blow round the corner, though just a gut feeling. The crooks who run this country are in crisis control mode, so will want to be seen doing something of spectical. There are so many diffrent crisises at the moment, that it is difficult to say what side of the coin we will have. I am willing to risk puting some money in at these levels, although am waiting to get cash from other investments. I originally bought a little bit higher than these levels anyway, so have not been burned to badly (although my overall profit could have been much greater. Just glad I split it and reinvested it into ANIC when it was low). So long as we're secure for 9 months, I will wait and see what happens.

https://www.ft.com/content/4206d16f-772f-4257-bdca-ca19ca049402#comments-anchor
https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/bills/cbill/58-02/0135/210135.pdf

Any thoughts?

Yeah, I have to agree. Things have gotten serious. I kind of wish in hindsight they did this at the high 20s but alas, what can you do.

Ay, true that is. Thank you for finding the actual Oxford article anyway. I struggled to get the link to work on the BBC website for some reason, so having it posted here made it easier to access. The considerations of the article posted, are intresting anyhow. There are a few issues of "going concern" which we need to be aware about in regards to the sector. I get the impression that water usage may still be comparable to animal husbandry, although things like cow manure run off will be less of a problem (hypothetically, less intense algae blooms for example).

Eh, it's complicated. Instead of being vegitarian or vegan, they have degrees of being vegitarian. A friend once told me, he can't eat egg because it has the potential for life but can drink milk because of krishna.

I mean something a little bit different here RWT2. The appeal to authority is misguided in and of itself. It is appealing to the "right" sort of authority and giving the "reasoning" of that authority which validates the claim (otherwise it is an informal fallacy). What I'm getting at is just because someone has done a PhD in physics at Oxford or something, doesn't necessarily mean they are an authority on the area we are looking at (although they may have sufficient expertise). In this case, the author of the article has got sufficient expertise (and I will concede on that point there to you), but it is no means given in and of itself.

You also have to think about the models the study is using: is it accurate? Is the model taking specific variables into account? One of the key issues highlighted by the report was problematic models and insufficient data at the moment from an industry still in its infancy. They also used beef instead of chicken or pig, so this can skew the model (as they rightly acknowledged).

The main issue of concern is this IMO:

“Replacing cattle systems with cultured meat production before energy generation is sufficiently decarbonized and/or the more optimistic production footprints presented here are realized (assuming they can be), could risk a long-term, negative climate impact”.

This is of tangible concern in my view. However, the authors noted:

“Decarbonized energy generation would also eliminate a proportion of the CO2 emissions from cattle systems, and so for this analysis we used footprints as presented under contemporary energy emissions assumptions.”

So my take on it, is it depends on if you believe decarbonization will happen. If you have time, I suggest you read the other article I posted. You may be able to scoop something out of interest for the conversation. There are other interesting impacts of lab grown meats considered in there which I think we should be made aware about.

Continued again...

'Indeed, it could be argued that comparing extant cattle production with hypothesized cultured meat systems presents a biased parallel. The speculative nature of all four cultured meat footprints tested here is borne of necessity, as to date there are no LCA of actual cultured meat production (at least in the public domain), despite manufacturer claims that a commercial launch is imminent [...]. Given the unknowns in this new form of production, we must be aware that impact assessments may change, and continue to take a systematic approach [...]. There is a need for much greater transparency from cultured meat manufacturers, with relevant data available to interrogate any environmental claims.'

And finally...

'The scale of cattle production required for the very high levels of beef consumption modeled here would result in significant global warming, but it is not yet clear whether cultured meat production would provide a more climatically sustainable alternative. The climate impacts of cultured meat production will depend on what level of decarbonized energy generation can be achieved, and the specific environmental footprints of production. There is a need for detailed and transparent LCA of real cultured meat production systems. Based on currently available data, cultured production does not necessarily give license for unrestrained meat consumption.'

This should give people enough information about what is roughly being disscussed in the paper.

Continued...

'In the most optimistic cultured meat production footprints, emissions are competitive with cattle systems for CO2 while avoiding the other gases: this is unambiguously superior from a climate perspective. However, the long-term advantage over cattle is not as dramatic as may be suggested by simple GWP100 comparisons. For the most conservative cultured meat footprint used here, which still had a lower carbon dioxide equivalent footprint than any cattle system in the study, the long-term temperature impact of production is dramatically worse than any cattle system. Furthermore, as emissions from cultured meat are predominantly composed of CO2, their warming legacy persists even if production declines or ceases (in the absence of active removal of this CO2 from the atmosphere). Replacing cattle systems with cultured meat production before energy generation is sufficiently decarbonized and/or the more optimistic production footprints presented here are realized (assuming they can be), could risk a long-term, negative climate impact.'

'In this study, beef was selected as the livestock meat to compare with cultured systems due to its especially high carbon dioxide equivalent footprint. It is striking how poorly these footprints correspond to long-term temperature impact, indicating the significant influence of the different atmospheric lifespan of each gas not adequately captured by the GWP100 metric.'

i.e. problems in methodology to study the impact of carbon gases. Makes sense.

'It has been argued that as the emissions from cultured meat are primarily from energy use, they may be significantly reduced in the future if energy generation is decoupled from emissions [...]—and given the long timeframe used here, large scale energy decarbonization will be essential well within this period to prevent very significant climate impacts irrespective of any emissions associated with food production. In the least optimistic cultured meat scenario here, however, the magnitude of energy required is such that sufficient decarbonized energy generation appears unlikely in the near to medium term.'

'Decarbonized energy generation would also eliminate a proportion of the CO2 emissions from cattle systems, and so for this analysis we used footprints as presented under contemporary energy emissions assumptions. Additionally, the timing of a large-scale decarbonization of energy generation would have significant impacts on wider climate targets, including determining the extent of on-going methane emissions that are compatible with a given temperature ceiling. As cultured meat is an emerging technology, wider improvements in efficiency of production may reduce its emissions footprint in the future, in addition to the decarbonization of energy generation. This, too, could also apply to cattle systems though, employing mitigations or technologies or moving to more efficient systems'

Mate, stop appealing to authority. You don't need a PhD in physics to understand the paper that has been cited by yourself except in certain sections relating to the methodology used. An average reader can get away with some statistical knowledge (mostly basic, but some a bit more advanced) and some knowledge on enviromental science as far as I can see ( basic understanding of chemistry as well for certain terms, but all can be quickly google searched). No where can I see any need to be aquainted with partial differntial equations or tripple intergrals. Here are some things I picked out:

'We conclude that cultured meat is not prima facie climatically superior to cattle; its relative impact instead depends on the availability of decarbonized energy generation and the specific production systems that are realized.'

'large uncertainties remain in what viable, animal-free, growth media may look like and hence their potential resource demand.'

'Despite the remaining unknowns in large-scale cultured meat production, a small number of studies have undertaken speculative life cycle assessments (LCA) to predict the environmental footprint of cultured meat [...] . The suggested GHG emissions per unit of cultured meat produced (“carbon footprints”) vary significantly, as they are based on different production systems and assumed inputs, and take alternative approaches in anticipating future developments. Nonetheless, the GHG emissions per unit of cultured meat are uniformly shown as superior to that of beef where this comparison is made (trends are less clear for other animal products).'

'To date, these comparisons (and most others evaluating the relative emissions intensity of different products or activities) are based on carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e) metrics that relate the emissions of different GHGs to carbon dioxide. However, such metrics may be misleading, and provide a poor indication of actual temperature response. Individual gases differ both in the amount they change the atmospheric energy balance (radiative forcing), and hence lead to warming, and how long they persist in the atmosphere.'

'The cattle production systems show greater peak warming within this time-frame (except for the comparison between the Swedish system and the highest footprint cultured meat system), but as a result of the persistence of the large-scale CO2 emissions in the early periods of production for cultured meat, any long-term benefits of this production are further reduced compared to cattle systems.'

'cultured meat is not necessarily a more sustainable alternative'

Ah, never mind, Wrong article. Still, worth a look as it's more recent.

The actual research paper is here if anyone wants to look at it. I would not be appealing to authority here, especially since the paper is easy to read. I would be dismissive of the intentions of the articles themselves, which often omit information in favor of spinning a narrative. The actual research paper in regards to the issue of carbon emissions, seems to play a mixture of devil's advocate plus 'we just don't know yet'. There is some stuff on water usage which was intresting. I haven't had a full look at the article, only the enviromental section so if anyone else wants to fill others on the board of the details, be my guest.

Source:

https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnut.2020.00007/full

https://www.greenqueen.com.hk/africas-first-cultured-seafood-startup-sea-stematic-eyes-global-market-growing-fish-consumption/

https://www.remediiate.com/

I'm glad they have technology to get them to possibly to net zero. I always thought that the algae option would be the most obvious, as its been around for a while. My concerns would be if more planning permission is required for the pilot facility, as well as what they plan to do with the product. If you feed it to cattle, it's still a part of the carbon cycle. There is also the development of lab grown meats round the corner which would make it harder to sell. Ideally, I would want goverment to pay SAE just to chuck it in a landfill somewhere. I have seen such algae sludge products being used as building materials, and in other capacitys so it's not that of a big concern at the moment; just something SAE needs to consider in future in my opinon.

"They have warned ministers that without tailored support, the UK risks repeating the same mistakes with marine energy as it did with offshore wind. "

Controversial opinion, but I think SAE would have been in a better position if Corbyn had got in ironically, as they had shown serious intrest in puting money into the area. Even mentioned it in their manifesto as well as Hydrogren.